In theaters January 8, 2009
Rating: PG, Comedy
The leap of faith that Leap Year asks us to take early on would be too much to ask of an audience on any day or in any year.
The strained and unconvincing premise of this otherwise pleasant romantic comedy digs a hole that the film is never quite able to claw its way out of.
Amy Adams stars as Anna, a real estate stager and control freak frustrated by the fact that she's been going with her cardiologist boyfriend (Adam Scott) for four years, and he still hasn't popped THE question.
When he lets yet another opportunity go by without committing, she devises an elaborate scheme to propose to him: she will honor an Irish tradition and pop the question on February 29. In Dublin, where he will be attending a medical conference and where women are allowed to propose marriage to men on that special day.
So, in pursuit of an official engagement, she follows him from Boston to the Emerald Isle, intent on surprising him on Leap Day in more ways than one. But inclement weather and messed-up travel arrangements leave her stranded in Dingle, which is nowhere near Dublin, which is on the other side of Ireland.
Her only hope of getting to Dublin is in a car driven by financially-strapped innkeeper Declan O'Callahan, played by Matthew Goode, who's as laid back as she is uptight. He can't stand her --and the feeling might be mutual -- but he needs the fee that the to-her-rescue road trip will bring.
Adams is usually a bundle of effortless charm. But the screenplay by Deborah Kaplan and Harry Elfont, with its forced opposites-attract conflict, doesn't exactly exude unpredictability, and then undermines her natural charm by saddling her with a character so needy and desperate, this naturally talented and usually irresistible performer very uncharacteristically grates.
What she needed was a lighter but firmer directorial hand than the clumsy one employed by Anand Tucker (Hilary and Jackie, Shopgirl, When Did You Last See Your Father?), who allows his casual plot to meander for stretches to the point of near-tedium, with dead spots that bring the narrative action to an occasional halt.
Goode, on the other hand, is able to maintain his likability by somehow underplaying without undermining the uninspired script.
Neither the film's makers nor any audience members pretend that the outcome of Leap Year is in any kind of doubt. But, as is true with any romantic comedy, we're ready to forgive any third-act inevitabilities if the journey is stimulating or enjoyable or involving or even distracting enough.
Alas...
Tucker does give us a generous amount of Ireland's breathtaking countryside scenery, but it ends up dwarfing the story and characters. Besides, compliments paid to the scenery rarely represents good news in a comedy.
And this one falls far short of its aspiration to be an It Happened One Year by featuring an undeniably handsome screen team whose odd-coupling chemistry never achieves anything resembling It Happened One Night-like sparks.
Leap Year is a run-of-the-mill, road-more-traveled romcom that aims for perky, but comes up jerky.
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Source:XMB